


Function of fractured mirrors

by LadyKG



Category: Naruto
Genre: Dimension Travel, F/F, Fix-It, M/M, Minato and Obito mismatched, Naruto makes Obito see sense by making him come up with an even crazier idea, Sort Of, Soulmate AU, This accidently turned into a slow burn.... oops, Time Travel, he's trying, only Obito fixes it, people have the names of the one they are meant to be with, this is entirely self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-03-22 11:13:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13762923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKG/pseuds/LadyKG
Summary: Obito was fifteen when he killed his mismatch and their soulmate. He thought the pain would go away; the encompassing ache of watching the person he was meant to be with spend their days by the side of another. Only it didn't. But he would fix it. He would fix it all, using a biju and a jutsu that a boy made of sunshine gave him the idea for, because nothing mattered so long as Minato was alive, he understood that now.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 'Ello lovely readers!  
> So a new fic, huh? Um, I know I haven't exactly updated my other stories, but... I have so many ideas for this one, and another story in progress that I won't be posting until it's fully written. I was supposed to do the same for this one, but I really couldn't resist posting it... so, yeah. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy it!

Obito was eleven when he got his name. Already in love with Rin - bright, smiling Rin, who _believed_ in him - and waiting in anticipation for the sweeping strokes of her name to paint themselves across his skin as they had his heart.

He was fifteen when he killed his mismatch and their soulmate. He thought the pain would go away; the encompassing ache of watching the person he was meant to be with spend their days by the side of another. Zetsu said it would. Zetus and Madara said he could build a world of peace. Where Rin was alive, and he was no longer a mismatch. A world without wars, where none of it ever happened or could or needed to.

A world where everyone was happy.

A world where Minato was his, and he was Minato’s.

There were six years between him and his death now, but the pain hadn’t lessened. Obito thought that watching Minato be happy with Kushina, have a _child_ with Kushina, was hard. He had not calculated the pain of living entirely without his presence.

He had known the exact moment that Minato died. Even as he was dragging himself away from Konoha, from the roars of a biju and the crumbling destruction of a village, he felt it. Felt it like a tidal wave, like the crushing weight of the boulder all over again. Only this time there would be no relief.

It was not always bad, however. Some days the memories merely sat, a whisper in the back of his head, executing a complicated dance with the vision of Rin’s blood covering his hands. Some days it crippled him, made him into nothing but a husk as his throat became raw and the caves turned into the forests that he once tried to burn under his hatred. Some days, like today, it was a pressure in his chest and on his chakra, making his skin itch to escape from memories his sharingan would never let him forget.

On those days he paced. Traced fingers along each branch and trunk that had grown through the brittle cave floors until the skin had worn away and left the bark smeared. Normally, he would stop then, be able to take in a breath without fire in his lungs, and bury the pain under anger at the world that took everything from him.

But today was not _normal._ Today was the one day he bothered to keep track of.

Today was the day that he attacked Konoha, and the day that Minato died.

He could hear it all, a rising symphony in the back of his mind, their screams and the roar of a beast he pushed his own anger into. Could hear the last gasping breath of everyone he held precious. And in the darkness of those caves he could even _see._ Each time he turned Minato was there, in the corner of his eye, a flash of yellow and blue that made his heart twist. He was always gone before Obito fully turned.

There was the hum of chakra above him; members of the Akatsuki moving around the base, waiting for a new mission. None of them understood the significance of the date. Irrationally, perhaps, it made the anger that had been his constant companion these past years boil in his veins. The tree beneath his fingers gained new leaves, branches like hands reaching towards the ceiling, and Obito snapped his chakra back into his coils with a hiss.

If he stayed in these caves he would tear them apart. He needed to leave for a while, or risk losing control. Zetsu would reprimand him either way, and losing control could very well mean rocks, and boulders, tumbling with his bursts of chakra. It could very well mean a cave in, and avoiding that is more than worth Zetsu’s ire.

It was not hard to decide where to go, this late at night there shouldn’t be anyone there and Obito _ached_ to be near Minato again, even if it was just a face on the mountain side. His nerves were ablaze as his feet hit stone. The air was warm for an October night, the wind a whisper over the mountain. The top of Minato’s head was cast in shadows as Konoha bubbled with life below. A festival thrown each year, in order to honor the defeat of the kyuubi. The signs of life and happiness made him sick; how could they celebrate the loss of their Hokage? The loss of _Minato._ How could they celebrate when-

Obito whipped around, chakra already rising as he tried to find the source of the noise that was made to his left. Soft, like whoever made it was trying to muffle the sound. And now that he paid attention he could feel a chakra signature nearby, too large for a civilian by far. He should leave, use kamui and disappear before whoever was there noticed him. But the noise came again, more distinct this time, enough so that he could tell it was a sniffle, wet and small as if from a child. He paused, for a moment, long enough that the shuffle of sandals was the all the warning he got before a whisper of blond hair came around a spike in Minato’s hair and the child, too busy whipping at his eyes to notice Obito, slid to a seat.

Minato was dead. He made sure of it, felt the loss like a missing limb every day. So the only answer to why this child looked so similar was it was the son Obito orphaned that night.

Something too close to Rin’s voice whispered in his mind. Too close to Kushina’s screams. Too close to the feeling of Minato’s chakra disappearing like a light flickering out.

He took a step forward, purposefully loud, in order to gain the child’s attention. The boy startled, viciously twisting to be as small as possible against the stone hair of his father while still being able to keep an eye on a potential threat.

“I didn’t do _anything,_ ” the blond shouted through teary eyes. And Obito could just catch the edge of whisker marks on his cheeks. “So just leave me alone!”

Obito blinked, slow and unsure for the first time in what felt like forever, but as the silence stretched and he observed the boy further he could make out the dark bruises and cuts starting to heal. There was dirt, too; both dusted and thickly caked like mud, turning what clothes he wore into rags.

“Who did this to you?” The sound of his own voice made him pause. It came rough and disused, scraping like sandpaper over his throat and tongue.

The boy, Naruto, if he remembered the name Minato had given his child correctly, looked at him with suspicion, “What’s it to you?”

“Who?” Obito pressed, not even bothering to suppress the rising anger in his voice. If his guess was correct then Konoha truly deserved to burn.

“No one, okay?” Naruto snapped defensively.

“So you did this to yourself?”

“No!”

“Then _who?_ ” This time the words were more a growled demand then question, but Obito cared little.

“The civilians,” Naruto muttered, shoulders slumping in something close to defeat but not quit, whipping tears from his eyes. And all at once Obito’s rage boiled over, only to disappear just as suddenly, leaving him empty and numb.

Obito let himself sink to sit on the stone head below him, silence settling like a blanket and Obito made no move to break it, more than happy to let the occasional sniffle lull into the background of the night.

He didn’t understand this world. How could they celebrate the day Minato died, and beat the only connection left to the man? He didn’t understand. Naruto was only a child, yet they raised their hands against him.

This was what he’d prevent. This was what he would fix with the tailed beasts. One of the jinchuuriki of which sat within arm’s reach. It would be so easy to take the child right then, with no one overlooking him. Zetsu would want him to. Would want him to snatch the child and biju to make up for leaving the base.

He didn’t.

Instead he sat atop his soulmate’s carving next to the child they made with someone else and listened to the celebrations that marked his death.

“Why’s your hair so long?” The fragile silence of the night broke under the curiosity of a child. One that moved a few inches closer to him, entirely unaware of Obito’s part in his suffering. When Obito did not immediately answer the boy continued, “Old-man says only powerful shinobi can have long hair, that’s why the Hokage have long hair.”

Obito glanced briefly at the boy, “What about the Sandaime?”

His nose scrunched up, the skin on his cheeks still red, “He’s too old to have hair.”

Obito didn’t laugh, but the bubble in his chest was a close thing, he thought.

“If you’re hair’s long does that mean you’re going to be Hokage?” Naruto moved the last foot of space quickly, practically crowding into Obito. “You can’t,” Naruto told him. “I’m the one who’s going to take the old man’s hat!”

For a moment all he could think about was how he used to have the same dream. How he wanted so badly to be Hokage, because if he were then everyone had to notice him - he would be useful, a _value_ to his clan and village. After he found out his name he had wanted it to prove he was good enough for Minato, even if he would never be able to be with the blond.

“Why?” Maybe it was a sick curiosity that made him ask. Or maybe it was because he didn’t want to go back to the base just yet. Didn’t want to stare at the walls in darkness, attempting to stifle the pain that hugged him near constantly.

“Because then they’ll have to notice me, and be nice,” Naruto told him, hands waving to the side. “And the kids at the playground will let me join their games, and the old lady on the corner won’t wave her broom at me, and I’ll buy from the stores and-“

Obito held up a hand to quiet him, careful not to let his stained hands touch Naruto, “You can’t buy food?” His voice came out calmer than he expected. It wasn’t a far leap to make from what he understood of the treatment they were giving him.

Naruto squirmed under his gaze, seemingly embarrassed, “I try, but they kick me out.”

The anger came again, a rolling wave washing over him, promising destruction in its wake. He realized, all too abruptly, that the blond was too good for this world. That the world Obito would create could give him the childhood he deserved.

“It’s okay.” Naruto smiled, bright in the darkness that surrounded them, and Obito felt his breath hitch under the weight of that smile.

“Don’t you wish it would all change?” Obito looked down at the boy with eyes too blue for the stars reflected in them. “Don’t you dream about a different life?”

“Sometimes,” Naruto said in a voice too small, as if it were a sin to want something more than what he already had. “But sometimes Old-man takes me for ramen, and old-man Teichi gives me free bowls and I wouldn’t trade that for anything, especially not a dream, because then I’ll just wake up and it’ll be gone.”

 _‘Not even for parents, or a dream that never ends?’_ Obito almost asked, but his tongue wouldn’t form the words that would blow out the light Naruto seemed to radiate. He hated the dark.

They lapsed back into silence for as long as Naruto could handle it.

“Hey, you never told me your name,” Naruto reached out and tugged on his sleeve. The touch made him freeze, he could feel the warmth of that hand through the shirt’s fabric, could sense the lack of chakra in the air that would proceed a technique, knew there was no threat. Yet, he had to stop himself from flinching away. Flinching because if Naruto touched him than the innocence he had would be tainted by the blood that Obito wore like a mask.

“Neither did you.”

Naruto puffed his cheeks, a spark of hesitation in his eyes, there and gone before Obito could even blink. “I’m Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage, dattebayo!” Obito’s lips twitched at the verbal tick, whether into a frown or smile he couldn’t tell. Blue eyes looked up at him expectantly, “Now it’s your turn.”

“I don’t have one.”

Naruto squinted at him, “Everyone has a name.”

Obito smiled ruefully down at the boy, “I’m nobody, so I don’t have one.”

Naruto shoved a hand at his arm, and then moved the same hand to pinch his leg, the movements startling him enough that he did nothing to stop them.

“What are you doing?”

“Only ghosts are nobodies, but I can touch you so you can’t be a ghost,” Naruto told him completely serious. “And ghosts are scary and mean, but you’re nice and I’m not scared of you.” _‘You should be,’_ Obito thought, but the boy was continuing before he could say it, “And-and-.” The boy paused, looking down almost bashfully, as if he was unsure what he was about to say would be welcomed, “And that makes you my friend, so that means you’re not nobody.”

His chest tightened, strangling the air in his lungs, eyes widening as the words sunk it. _‘Friend’,_ he hadn’t heard that word in a lifetime. Not since Rin.

Obito reached out, slow but purposefully, and he ruffled Naruto’s hair. The blond’s head shot up, a look of wonder in blue eyes. “I’m…” For a moment he was going to say ‘Madara’, was going to once more press upon the boy that he had no name at all, but instead what came out was a truth too close to a lie, “Obito.”

“That’s a weird name,” Naruto informed him factually.

Obito raised an eyebrow, “And Naruto isn’t?”

“Nope!” The blond said, “Naruto’s in ramen, and ramen’s the food of the gods, dattebayo!”

He couldn’t say that he followed the logic, but he didn’t bother questioning it all the same. He had heard less logical things in his lifetime.

“Why are you up here, anyway?” Naruto asked him, the hand in his shirt hadn’t moved.

To mourn. To be closer to someone he had pushed away in the worst way. “I like the view.”

“Me too.” Naruto let go of his shirt and moved a bit towards the edge of Minato’s head. “Plus the fourth was the _coolest._ He saved the village from the fox, and Iruka-sensei says he was the fastest Hokage.”

Obito listened absently as Naruto rambled on and on about Minato, only paying half a mind to what the boy was saying as his thoughts wandered.

“-and he could do that disappearing jutsu, the one where he could jump from place to place without even _moving_ , and-.” Obito was abruptly brought back to focus with that statement, because the jutsu Naruto mentioned was a time-space jutsu. It was not something he had given much thought to in the past, because time in itself was a concept most shinobi didn’t touch in conjunction with jutsu. But time-space jutsu were _possible._ Obito used one with kamui, and Minato had the Flying Thunder God technique that utilized a seal. So why couldn’t he just focus on the time portion of it, treat it like another dimension? The concept was no more insane than collecting all the biju to create a mass illusion using the moon, really. And Obito couldn’t _not_ try. Not if it gave the possibility of saving Minato, and Rin. And, hadn’t that been the point in the beginning of all this? To make a world where Minato and Rin would be alive. His dream had expanded since then, now it encompassed the idea of a world without lies, or child-soldiers, where there was no war or pointless sacrifice. And maybe the moon-eye plan would bring that about, maybe it would create an illusion so real that it might as well be truth, but it would still be just that: an illusion. A _dream_. And something like this, like a jutsu to go back, would be so much more.

He didn’t believe it would work, not _really,_ but that was all the more reason to try. That was all the more reason that there wasn’t any reason to _not_ try. Because it was either this or an illusion, and as real as that illusion would feel, that was all it would be. And if he failed, then he would trust in Zetsu to finish what they’d already started.

“Hey!” Obito jerked back as Naruto was suddenly right in his face, “Are you even listening?” The boy’s face was pulled into a twitching mockery of something sour.

“The fourth can teleport,” Obito dutifully repeated the last thing he heard.

“Tele-what?”

“He moved from one place to another really fast.” Obito restructured the meaning.

“I said that _forever_ ago, old man!” Naruto exclaimed.

“I’m not old,” Obito pushed the blond away, careful not to push too hard.

“Then what’s with all the wrinkles?”

“They’re _scars,”_ Obito told him.

“Oh, good.”

“Good?” Obito asked. How could his scars possibly be good?

“Yeah,” Naruto smiled, “it means you won’t be Hokage, ‘cause Hokage are too strong to get hurt.”

But not too strong to die, Obito thought.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um. I should probably mention that this is meant to be like... short. And by short I mean under 50,000 words, but we'll see how well that works out?

He was falling.

In most cases that would be cause for alarm, but Obito wasn’t falling in the conventional sense. Not even the metaphorical. He was falling, and yet not. Flying and yet not. Seeing red, red walls, dripping crimson and black and yet not.

He was dying. And yet, _not._

He could not breathe, if only because he did not need to, as his body was full and empty at once. He could not scream only because no one would hear, nothing would, in this in-between place. There seemed no end, and yet when he opened his eyes, or more accurately, when he could _see_ again, there was the brightness of greens and dappled sunlight. A forest swaying above his head. A moment more and there was the breeze on his skin and the tickle of leaves against palms as he pushed to his feet.

And he breathed.

His eye ached. He could feel the blood dripping down his face, but he didn’t have the time to contemplate that. A flash of metal had him ducking and another forced him to move to the side. He pulled up roots to block the next round of kunai, and immediately twisted into a roll to avoid a suiton jutsu.

He came onto the balls of his feet and launched himself forward, grabbing one of the kunai as he went to meet the swipe of another blade. There were three signatures in the surrounding trees, so four shinobi total, and Obito really wasn’t in the mood for this. He dropped to try and sweep his opponent’s feet from beneath them, but the motion was easily dodged. He followed after, avoiding a kunai that had been thrown in the same motion. The enemy in front of him did not have a visible headband from this angle, giving Obito no clue as to their affiliation.

Not that it mattered really, he’d be killing them regardless, because he couldn’t risk wasting his chance to change everything because he landed too close to a patrol or group of missing-nin.

There was a flash out of the corner of his eye, if he was angled even a hairsbreadth more to the left he wouldn’t have seen it. But he did, and it had him throwing himself down and to the right. Even so, he _knew_ he wouldn’t be fast enough. Could feel it in his bones, washing over his nerves like electricity. With a growl he sent chakra into his eye, sharingan whirling to life. The pain was like fire, but he pulled himself into kamui, just enough to put him behind his attacker. Such a simple move made him _burn_. He could feel the chakra retreat from his eye, and didn’t attempt to stop it.

Everything seemed to freeze then. Even the trees stilled, as if the forest was holding its breath, baited in anticipation.

The shinobi in front of him, the one he currently held at a knife’s edge, had blond hair; the same shade that filled his dreams. Obito just hoped that they couldn’t feel the way his heart pounded against his ribcage. From this angle Obito could see that several of the kunai littering the clearing were three-pronged. Two more shinobi dropped down from the trees and Obito’s eye snapped to the glint of their headbands.

“You’re an Uchiha.” One of them said, but the roaring in Obito’s ears all but drowned it out.

“Konoha.” It came out on a breath, soft and full of something close to wonder because those uniforms were _old._ His eye flickered back to the person he had hostage, and everything slowly fell into pace.

It worked.

 _It worked,_ and the very person he burnt through the five-tail’s chakra for was _here_. And, Sage, let Rin be alive too. The kunai in his hand loosened. It was all the opening that a shinobi such as Minato needed. There was a sharp pressure against his neck, eyes the same shade as the sky he thought he’d never see again, and then everything went black.

When he next woke there was a pressure in his head, and throbbing around his eyes. It was instinctive to not react, as a shinobi, to regulate his breathing and not let the shinobi he _knew_ were near him know he was awake. (Even if he couldn’t sense them with chakra - a suppression seal he had no doubt - it was only logical that they wouldn’t leave an unknown alone.) At least not until he got his bearings. From the softness beneath him he’d say he was on a bed, the muted noise of monitors and smell of anti-biotics said he was in a hospital, which meant that the patrol he ran into brought him here _._ Not to interrogation, or prison.

Peeling back a lid glued shut by dried blood he found a dark nothing; except, he shouldn’t have lost sight from that jutsu. With tentative hands, Obito reached up towards his head, letting his fingers tell him what his eye wouldn’t. A wrap. They wrapped his eye, most likely due to the bleeding. He makes sure not to show the relief he feels on his face.

Slowly, he slipped his fingers into the fabric, tugging it up and away from his eye to rid himself of a disadvantage. Regardless of whether or not he was in Konoha - and even as he thought it, something felt _off,_ like his assessment wasn’t fully the truth - there was always the potential for a threat.

White walls, and no windows was what met him as his eye adjusted to the brightness of the room. Turning his head he found a few monitors he could only assume were for medical purposes, all the same he started meticulously removing the tubes and wires. Eye briefly running over the suppression seal painted on his arm as he removed the IV drip. Obito was by no means an expert on seals, which meant he’d need them to remove it if he wanted his chakra back. He pulled the last tube out a tad more harshly and forced the scowl twitching across his lips not to show.

The door opened as the last tube hit the ground, sliding from the mattress and clinking against the tile floor with a soft patter. Four shinobi walked in, including who he could only assume was his guard in ANBU gear taking up the front. Minato was the next to enter, and Obito was more than relieved the sensors were removed in that moment. Although he couldn’t say he’d be surprised if they could still hear the loud thump of his heart. He hadn’t had the time earlier in the woods to truly let it sink in that he was in the past, that Minato was _here;_ whole and not covered in blood, soul not lost to the Shinigami’s demands. For a heart wrenching moment he felt that if he looked away then all of this would disappear. But Fugaku’s entrance drew his eye away and the world didn’t shatter - he held back his sigh of relief, tucked it away besides the spark of hope that sat on his heart. Obito wasn’t shocked, but he couldn’t say he was particularly happy to see his old clan head either. But it was the Yamanaka entering last that really caught his attention, because it told him that the risk of not cooperating was too high. (He didn’t need someone poking around in his head; those memories are best not to be seen by anyone but himself, and even then he wished he could forget some of them.)

Obito dipped his head slightly to those entering, because respect would get him farther in this situation than anything else. He hadn’t planned for this. When he was drawing up the when and where he had laid the framework behind the idea he would slip into the shadows and manipulate everything from there. There would be no need to explain himself, or deal with the bureaucracy of the village and clan. There would be no need to tell anyone what he’d done. Besides Zetsu, at least, because now there would be no need for the moon-eye plan to be played out at all. (He still needed to find a way to get in touch with Zetsu, to explain that Obito _succeeded._ That bringing about peace would be possible so long as he used the end of the third war as a means to foster peace instead of rivalry between nations.)

The Yamanaka moved around his bed, not wanting to block the view of his reaction to questions from the others. Obito held in a snort, he didn’t plan on lying exactly, just not telling the whole truth. The man placed a hand on his shoulder and Obito had to force himself not to flinch - it had been a long time since he had let anyone close enough to touch him, not even Zetsu had laid a hand on him since Rin died. A chakra intruded into his coils, foreign and sluggish as it tried to navigate around Obito’s own.

“We’ll start with you name,” Fugaku said, sharingan blazing to life.

He opened his mouth to say Madara, to say Tobi, to say anything _else,_ because those wouldn’t be lies, not really, but he thought of Naruto and of _‘that’s a weird name,’_ and what came out left ash in its wake. “Obito.”

Minato didn’t flinch, but Obito saw the tightening around his eyes, and he _knew_ that the Obito in this time had already been crushed. Which would work to his advantage if he played this right.

“How old are you?”

It wasn’t hard to see what they were doing; setting a base to see how his chakra reacts to questions that he has no reason to lie about, no reason to be emotionally connected to in order to tell with more accuracy whether or not he lied.

Except Obito didn’t actually _know_ his age. He knew dates and how long had passed since Rin’s death and Minato’s, but not since the boulder. It didn’t mean he couldn’t estimate it, though, because not knowing his age would be far too suspicious for what he was planning. “Twenty-two.”

“What village do you work for?”

Obito tilted his head, letting a spark of humor into his gaze, “I don’t.”

“A missing-nin then,” Fugaku sneered, and Obito knew that the man was more frustrated that he had no record of Obito than anything else. The Uchiha tended to keep extensive documentation of the clan’s members and who they had children with. With the culture of the Uchiha is was almost unheard of to have a bastard child, but it was also not _impossible._

He shook his head, “I’ve never belonged to any village,” he continued before they could ask the questions he already planned to answer. “My mentor took me in from a small farming town after an accident that awoke my eye and gave me these.” He gestured towards his scars.

“What’s your mentor’s name?” Minato spoke up, blue eyes intense in their focus.

“Zetsu,” he tilted his head, “he doesn’t like people much, so we stay away from any major village.”

There was a shift as the three shinobi glanced at each other, most likely confirming that none of them had heard of Zetsu prior to this. It was Fugaku that turned to him first in order to continue the questioning. “Why are you here?”

“To tell you we found one of your shinobi.”

The Yamanaka must have been on active field duty, because Obito barely saw the kunai before it was at his throat (but that might be because they’re on his blind side), a storm of chakra pressed down on him from all sides.

He didn’t react. There wasn’t much that could make him flinch in terms of chakra after the nine-tail’s licking through his veins, or the five-tail’s swallowing him whole.

“He’s alive,” he told them, as if his life wasn’t in danger at all, “young, too. He looks like me.”

Fugaku grasped onto that. “What do you mean he looks like you?”

“He has the same eye,” Obito shrugged.

Part of him realized that by doing this, by giving them the key to saving his younger self, he wouldn’t be able to come back to Konoha, but he didn’t care. Didn’t _let_ himself care, or think of Minato. He hadn’t intended to come back here, anyway. So he was just getting back on track to his original plan, it didn’t matter that he wouldn’t be able to be with Minato. Didn’t matter so long as Minato was _alive._ He understood that now.

“You found an Uchiha?” Minato stepped forward, a hope in his eyes that Obito knew he was trying to suppress. Hope in a world like this - in a world full of shinobi - was a dangerous thing to have, and even more dangerous during wartime or the time coming off of it.

“Is that what he’s called? Strange name,” he couldn’t help but smile slightly, recalling all too easily the way Naruto had said something so similar two years ago. Only, Naruto had been sincere, hadn’t been playing a part.

“Where are you keeping him?”

Obito blinked, “I came here to get a Konoha shinobi to retrieve him.”

“Why not bring him earlier, or with you now?”

“He was too unstable to move,” Obito explained, before covering up the fact that he wasn’t exactly sure about that particular statement with the truth of next one. “And I’m not exactly here with my mentor’s approval.”

“Too unstable?” The Yamanaka pressed, kunai still threatening to slit his throat. Obito was more than willing to let them attach their line of questioning to that little fact rather than the second.

“He was being crushed by a boulder when I found him.”

Minato froze, a look of dawning realization spreading over his face, and Obito felt his heart in his throat at the way hope shined in those blue eyes before a mask slammed into place.

“What does he look like?” Minato asked, voice carefully neutral.

“Black hair, Konoha headband,” Obito rattled off, trying to remember what he used to wear, “and orange goggles.”

“Obito,” Minato whispered, the word wrapped tightly in hope and wonder. It made his chest ache, because those emotions were for a him that will be able to spend the rest of their life under Minato’s gaze, not for _him._

“What?” he asked, because he knew that the confusion would be expected.

“His name’s Obito,” Minato said. “And he’s my student.”

 

 

 

Standing in front of the Hokage to report what information they had gathered from the mystery Uchiha was the hardest thing that Minato had done. His student was _alive_. Alive and hurt and probably feeling more alone every minute because they had left him under the boulder to be found, and saved by strangers.

(Alive. Which might explain the way Minato hadn’t felt the overwhelming pain that soulmates were reported to feel at the death of even a mismatch. He had felt pain, of course, but only that at losing a student. Minato hadn’t felt any strong emotions towards Obito even when the boy was with them. Only bouts of fondness and pride when the boy managed a new technique or held his own against Kakashi in a spar. It made Minato think that they weren’t actually soulmates, or that maybe they were the platonic kind - but he’d heard that even they felt some form of pull towards each other, and Minato felt nothing with his student.

But now this mystery Obito showed up, and although he claimed no last name, there was no way he wasn’t an Uchiha. Minato wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that they were soulmates, but it would be a lie to say the thought hadn’t crossed his mind.)

The Hokage looked grim, and Minato could understand, because they had just come off a war, and they couldn’t afford to spare the man power to send a team out on a retrieval mission. Understood that there was the chance this was all a trap, but Obito - the one sitting in a windowless hospital room, recovering from chakra exhaustion - had agreed to keep the repression seal until they knew it wasn’t a lie. Had said that he came to Konoha because he wasn’t interested in wars or keeping a shinobi from their village. That he wanted to show there were better ways, and if that meant risking himself to help those who needed it, then he would. Minato wasn’t sure he believed him. Wasn’t sure that it was the whole story, but if there was even the barest chance that what he had said was true, Minato would take it and run; because Kakashi receded into himself day by day, and Rin wondered the training grounds or hospital floors like a ghost. His team was in pain, and the solution to it was too close for him to give up on.

“Hokage-sama,” Minto spoke up as soon as he saw an opportunity, “I can go myself, Obito would keep the suppression seal and you wouldn’t need to send a full team.”

The Sandaime met his gaze steadily, “You would endanger yourself and Konoha’s future for a single student?”

Minato opened his mouth to say _‘yes’,_ but bit it back a moment later. He knew he was one of the Hokage candidates - one of the strongest in terms of support, and most likely to take up the hat within the year. Knew that the future of Konoha truly did rest on his shoulders. On this decision; because there was always the chance that a mission could go wrong. But, this was for Obito. For a teammate, and student that believed so brazenly in keeping friends and comrades safe even at the cost of the mission or his own life. The least he could do was return the favor, so he grit his teeth, eyes blazing as he looked back up to meet Sarutobi’s eyes, “Yes.”

Smoke filled the room as the man let out a breath, “Very well. You will leave tomorrow. Take two others with you, as well.”

“Thank you, Hokage-sama.” He bowed low and for a moment longer than he normally would, as he rose up he let a smile spread over his face, “That was a test, wasn’t it?”

Sarutobi chuckled, leaning back into his seat, “Everything is a test, my boy.”

“Did I pass?”

“What do you think?”

“I think I made the right decision,” he said, taking a small form of comfort in the spark of humor and something close to approval in the Hokage’s eyes. He gave a final nod as he left through the window, planning to head to Kushina’s in order to discuss the seal that he found on Obito’s heart. It was a design that he hadn’t seen before. That alone would have excited him, but it was the fact Obito seemed confused when it was brought to his attention that really intrigued him. Despite this and the implications that came with it, the entire situation left something heavy in his chest; a foreboding feeling he couldn’t shake that today marked a turning point. For what, he couldn’t say, but his gut told him it was something good.

Minato purposefully went up the stairs to Kushina’s apartment to knock on her door, because the last time he had gone in through the window he had caught her and Mikoto in a position he _never_ needed to see. He didn’t even have time to raise his hand to knock before he was being dragged in by his redheaded best friend.

“Okay, Pretty Boy,” she said, shutting the door with a bang as she crowded him into the apartment, “spill. What’s this seal you were talking about yesterday?”

“Brush and paper?” he asked, settling onto a chair at her kitchen table. After the initial reports of there being a strange flow to their newest prisoner’s chakra around the heart Minato had gone to Kushina with the thought that it might be a seal. In return, she suggested scanning his system to see if his suspicions were correct, and if they were then she had a few seals that could help him figure out the design with enough chakra control.

“Here,” she said, handing over the supplies. “This better be interesting.”

Minato only hummed. The design wasn’t particularly complex, a simple set of rings with a few sharper lines from the center and in the surrounding area of the seal. “I have a few ideas,” he told her, sliding the paper across the table for her to inspect, “but you’re better at deconstructing seals than I am.”

She didn’t reply right away, only stared down at the design with a frown tugging across her face, brows furrowing. “Where’d you say this was?”

“His heart.”

“Minato,” Kushina looked up at him, all traces of her usual cheer and playful personality gone. Maybe his gut feeling had been wrong. “How many people know about this?”

“The design? Only us,” Minato told her.

“Keep it that way,” she said. “This is a curse seal, Minato. I’m not sure what it does exactly, but I’ll bet an entire month’s worth a ramen it’s not good.”

“Can it be removed?”

“Not without killing him.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Ello lovely readers,  
> Sorry about not posting for a while - life has kinda been hell, and writing is normally my stress relief but I haven't really had time for it recently with everything going on. I'd like to say I'll be able to post more during the summer but I can't really make any promises.  
> Also WARNING: CHARACTER DEATH in this chapter.  
> Anyway, onto the chapter, hope you all enjoy!

Obito couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t an unusual situation, exactly, but the reason behind it was something other than nightmares for once. The fact that his chakra was still suppressed made him feel exposed, leaving him hyper alert to any movement or sound within the range of his senses. There was also the little fact that he _knew_ he was being watched, the ANBU which had returned with the interrogation team hadn’t even been subtle about disappearing into the shadows of the room. He hadn’t slept in the presence of others in so long that he knew sleep would only come from exhaustion.

But he didn’t necessarily need sleep, his body more than capable of handling a restless night or two. Which left him less than tired, and stuck in the throes of his thoughts. It wasn’t a place he really wanted to be.

Not for the first time since the meeting the day before - he could only assume that it was morning now, his internal clock ticking away with each passed hour and the shift changes of his guards - Obito pressed a hand against his chest right over his heart, rubbing at the spot. Minato said there was a seal over his heart. A seal that he obviously didn’t recognize since he had to ask Obito about its use, but Obito didn’t know. Hadn’t even known he _had_ a seal over his heart in the first place. It left him confused; why hadn’t Zetsu told him? Was it to help his body accept the foreign limb and cells that were needed to save his life?

With a deliberate motion Obito drew his hand away from his chest, staring up at a ceiling that was fuzzy with the darkness - he suspected the lights would be turned on soon enough.

There was nothing he could do; he was near completely dependent on the idea that Minato wouldn’t leave his other self behind in that cave. He was also playing his cards on the hope that Zetsu wouldn’t kill him on sight. Obito coming back in time - _proving_ that everything could be changed in reality instead of an illusion - could also prove to put Zetsu’s plans in danger, and showing up out of nowhere might make him react poorly; attacking before Obito could even have a chance to properly explain.

He needed to play everything just right, or else the consequences would be disastrous. Not just for him, but for his younger self, and the future that he would create now that he was here.

There was the steady tap of steps against the floor outside his room, purposefully loud in the silence, and as they stopped the door swung open. A stream of light from the hallway left him momentarily blinking against the sudden brightness, but the room’s own fixtures flickered on soon after, leaving his eye squinting.

There were three sets of footsteps, however, only Minato walked into the room. Obito could only assume the other two were guards that had orders to stay at the door.

“Namikaze,” he said, inclining his head slightly to meet blue eyes, the surname strange on his tongue.

“Obito, good morning.” The man did not smile, face a mask of neutrality as he moved to the foot of Obito’s bed. “I’ll cut to the chase,” Minato told him. “You are going to lead myself and a small group of shinobi to your base, where we will retrieve Uchiha Obito. You will keep the seals until we know he is safe. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly, but” he started, testing the waters with a push of luck, “it would be faster if we could _all_ travel with chakra.”

Minato narrowed his eyes, “You said you would keep the seals. Are you going back on your word?”

“No,” Obito raised his eyebrow, “but I did say, until you knew it wasn’t a lie. You’re here, so I’d say you already know I’m telling the truth.”

“You keep the seal.”

A part of Obito, the one that still clung to the idea of being Minato’s soulmate, rejoiced at the thought of spending more time by his side. (A week and a half, at least, to make it to the border, and then another two to make it to the base.) But another, the part he considered more logical, understood that spending more time with Minato would only make it harder to leave once they make it to the Mountain Graveyard. And would give more time for Obito to potentially slip up. It also meant that he’d be almost a month behind on his plans to start changing the future.

He shoved these thoughts away. There was nothing to be done about it right then, he would wait for a better opportunity to try and convince the man.

“You said there would be a small group.” Obito moved the conversation forward; the faster they got on the road, the better.

“Yes.” He assumed the man flared his chakra, because there was no verbal or otherwise physical call for the two figures that came through the door, “Uchiha Mikoto, Uzumaki Kushina, and myself.”

“We can introduce ourselves,” Kushina huffed, shoving past Minato and looking at Obito with bruise-purple eyes, hands on her hips. “I’m Uzumaki Kushina, future Hokage, ya’know.”

“Uchiha Mikoto, pleasure to meet you.”

Obito blinked at them, eye caught on red-red hair. _‘You’re his soulmate, and I killed you for it. I orphaned your son. He’s made of sunshine. He’s the reason I’m here.’_

“It’s nice to meet you.” He made a promise - silently even in his own mind - that Naruto wouldn’t grow up alone this time. That Kushina would live, and happily have a child with Minato. (Rin would live. Kakashi wouldn’t lose an eye. His younger self would take a different path. He would change the world. So many promises, so little time.) “When do we leave?”

“Now,” Minato said as Obito pulled himself from the bed and stood up for the first time since he arrived - he had tried before, but ANU had stopped him from going anywhere but the bathroom.

“Huh,” Kushina tilted her head, “I thought you’d be taller.”

Obito felt himself bristle at the comment, but before he could say anything a pair of clothes was being shoved into his hands. He blinked down at what seemed to be a standard jounin uniform - sandals and all.

“Where are my clothes?”

Minato’s lips twitched down into a frown, “They were half-burned away by chakra.”

“Oh.” It made sense, he thought. The chakra of the five-tails was corrosive, and mix that with the friction of the strange _nothing_ space then it was a surprise he hadn’t been burned up in the process really.

Obito moved to the bathroom and slipped into the uniform, pausing for only a second to catch sight of his reflection in the mirror (chakra enhanced, so as not to be easily broken by a punch alone). It makes his chest squeeze strangely; he had never thought to see himself in this gear. Once upon a time, it had been all he thought about - all the ways in which he could advance to jounin and then Hokage jumbled in his mind. Increasingly loud, and seemingly impossible with how much _better_ Kakashi always was. With how much he disappointed his clan.

His sharingan had been the key back then, and it seemed it was still the key, in the end. (There was an irony in that somewhere, he knew, but he had no time nor inclination to think on it when he wouldn’t be wearing this after they reached the Mountain Graveyard.)

By the time they made it to the forest outside Konoha’s gates Obito had managed to wheedle two kunai and a shuriken out of Minato. It’s the least he could have in order to protect himself if something goes wrong.

“So, mind telling us where we’re going?” Kushina called from her position with Mikoto at the back - a simple triangle formation, with Obito in the middle; offering both protection and observation of him.

“You didn’t tell them before?” Obito raised an eyebrow; it would make sense if this mission was to be kept secret from the likes of Danzo, but the elder wouldn’t have any interest in the survival of an Uchiha child. Perhaps Obito’s appearance would garner some form of attention, but not enough to send out ROOT, especially with the war having just ended.

“Mission procedure,” Minato said, his face angled slightly so that his voice would carry even as it was kept low.

Unless Danzo was given a reason to be interested. Unless they took his blood and figured out that half his cells weren’t really _his._ In which case there would be much interest in his whereabouts, and the whereabouts of his ‘hermit teacher’.

But Obito shouldn’t _know_ about Danzo, should barely even know the politics of villages, let alone understand the procedure for a mission, so he bit his tongue against any further comment.

“We’re heading to the northern point between Taki and Grass country.” Minato turned back to look ahead.

“It’ll take us a month at this pace,” Kushina huffed.

“It’ll be like a vacation,” Mikoto said. “A well-paying vacation.”

Even with Mikoto’s placating words, Obito wasn’t about to let this opportunity go - a month with these three would be too long, but a few hours of packing off his younger self was something he could manage. “I could get us there within hours,” Obito said, keeping the words casual.

Minato didn’t stop walking, not even bothering to look back as he spoke, “You’re keeping the seal.”

“If I wanted you dead,” Obito snorted, replying to the unspoken accusation, “you would be.”

“The kunai,” Mikoto said in soft realization, “they weren’t to keep you safe.”

This time Minato did stop, shifting to look at the three of them, a clear debate in his gaze as he assessed the situation. The man was smart, from what Obito remembers of him. Resourceful. He was betting on that right now. Betting on the fact Minato would use every skill and means of accomplishing his goal at his disposal. “How?”

Obito didn’t bother pushing his luck by not understanding the meaning behind the question, “The same way I got here.”

“You mean the same jutsu that left you unconscious?” Minato shook his head, “Your teacher won’t be welcoming if we show up with his unconscious student.”

“It left me like that because I overloaded it.” Obito countered, “I’ll take us within a day of the cave, and use less chakra.”

“A pair of hermits living in a remote cave, how original.” Kushina’s comment went ignored.

“We have no way of knowing it’s not a trap,” Minato said simply. (Although there was the flash of something more - confusion? - in his gaze, as if he was trying to figure out the meaning of something Obito said, or didn’t say.) And Obito couldn’t fault him his practicality, but he wished, in that moment, that his soulmate wasn’t this damn hard to convince. And it hurt, if Obito was willing to analyze the tight frustration in his chest further, that he wasn’t trusted.

“If it’s a trap then it’ll still _be_ a trap a month from now or not.” Obito could point out that it would mean seeing his student sooner; being able to bring him back to Konoha sooner. But something told him it would have led him nowhere but two steps back from getting these seals off.

Minato stared at him for a long moment, his gaze flickering to Kushina and Mikoto - seemingly having a full conversation with that one look - and then back. “Fine,” Minato agreed, “but if it’s a setup I'll kill you myself.”

 _‘No less than I deserve,’_ Obito thought. Without a word he held his arms forward, wrists facing up. It only took him a second to realize how poorly he thought this all through. Or, more accurately, that he didn’t think about Minato having to _touch_ him during this process. He was so focused on getting away that the simple contact required to actually remove the seals didn’t register.

He only hoped that the way his heart beat out of rhythm would be chalked up to excitement at getting the seals off, and not the way Minato’s fingers tracing over the seal made his skin tingle. Or the way the small push of the man’s chakra into Obito’s own system made him _burn_.

The rush of his chakra returning was more than worth it, however. It only took a blink of his eye and it was bleeding red with a wave of chakra, the pinwheel spinning impossibly fast into his mangekyou sharingan.

The only reaction from Mikoto was the shift of her feet.

It took only a second longer to orient himself enough that the sheer _wrong_ of this world started to settle in, leaving a hot itch to crawl its way over the back of his neck. He didn’t let it show on his face, but panic settled in like a second skin; this wasn’t _his_ world. He may have travelled back in time, but the threads of this dimension were all wrong. How had he not realized before? How had he not thought of this as a possibility when the jutsu worked almost flawlessly?

He hadn’t just gone back in time. No. The jutsu shoved him across the dimensional plains until it found one that was still in the time frame he asked for. There was no telling what was different. Not much, if what he has seen so far was anything to go by. And add that to the fact the jutsu demanded certain criteria for the time period - running on his memories and desires - then it should be practically the same.

Only it wasn’t _exactly_ the same. And wasn’t that the point? He had come back for _his_ Rin. For _his_ Minato. Not for a set of imposters. Anger bubbled hot and fast, a searing rush of acid through his abdomen.

“Obito?” Minato’s voice snapped him from his thoughts. The anger sat like a fire against his stomach. There was nothing to be done about it right now. He would deliver this Minato to this world’s Obito and then he would find a way back to his own. Perhaps this was just a step in the greater process of moving to his own past. Maybe he just needed to treat this world like a stepping stone.

“You’ll need to grab me,” he said in way of answer, not meeting any of their gazes - fakes, imposters, all of them. He resisted the urge to clench his fists. “It might feel a little strange,” he warned as he felt their hands on him, Minato’s burning hotter than the other’s. Like it always had.

He pulled chakra from his coils, let it rush into his eye and pealed apart the fabric of the universe so that he could make way for himself and three others. They landed for only a moment in his own dimension - a stepping stone - so that they would only see a shock of darkness, eyes not yet adjusted to the change in light, before reappearing in an expansive field. One of many in this area. It was littered with massive bones, pillaring rocks that made for poor imitations of mountains in the landscape of rolling hills cut from the ground like jagged teeth, and in the distance Obito could make out the start of a forest. The trees much shorter than those in Fire Country, providing for less cover. The distinct chill in the air that came from being farther north caught on the wind. All so similar to his own dimension.

Obito let himself stagger a few steps forward, removing himself from immediate contact with the rest of the group while simultaneously presenting the use of the jutsu as taxing - something already assumed from his collapse during their first meeting. The others should’ve been slightly off-center from their first trip through kamui, so he didn’t expect a hand to grab his arm, another resting at his waist in order to steady his movements. His gaze snapped up to meet blue eyes. Minato. Of course. He should have known with how the man was already used to space-time jutsus and the sense of dislocation that it could cause.

“Steady there,” Minato said, his hands lingering for a moment longer before he withdrew.

Obito refused to think about the way he already missed the touch.

“Is everyone alright?” The blond turned to the rest of the group.

“Fine, fine,” Kushina waved a hand as she and Mikoto separated from each other. Most likely they grabbed on for support as they re-entered this dimension. Obito couldn’t blame them, using kamui was disorienting the first time. Purple eyes turned towards him, “That’s some jutsu you got there.”

Obito met her gaze steadily, shrugging away the pry for information, “We’re a few hours southwest of the cave.”

The look from before - the one Minato had when he made arguments for a potential trap - reappeared on the man’s face, and still Obito didn’t understand. He saw nothing wrong with what he said.

“How much would it take to convince you to take us back like that?” Mikoto asked. If it had been anyone else who asked Obito would take the question as a genuine joke, but it was Mikoto - an _Uchiha_ \- who could understand his sharingan if given the time and opportunity.

He shook his head, “Zetsu wouldn’t approve. He’ll already be mad that I brought you.”

“Everyone has their price,” Mikoto smiled, sharp and ready for a challenge. Obito didn’t bother telling her that she had already lost.

“This way,” he said instead, letting his chakra enhance his speed as he ran across the fairly open plain, the grass tickling his exposed toes. The sky was overcast, and if they had any luck on their side then they would make it to the cave before the threatening rain hit. He could, perhaps, convince Zetsu to house the other three until the weather passed, but that might be pushing it. It might also be too great a risk. Potential eaves dropping when he further explained to Zetsu _how_ he came from the future - albeit a parallel dimension’s future, it still proved there was other ways than the moon-eye plan. Too many chances to draw connections between him and the Obito of this world.

No. He would send them off the second they had his younger self. It was better that way. That way he could get started on constructing his plans to return as soon as they left. The jutsu had been designed to focus on the time aspect of his kamui, mixing that with his desires (Rin, alive; Minato, alive) and memories from the time he wanted to return to. But his eye had always been more inclined towards dimensional travel, and it was obvious from this failure that he hadn’t fully taken that into account. He would need to think over every aspect of the jutsu again. Think over every detail of the chakra he used, every thread he pulled, and every thought and wish that he had while executing it.

“For someone who doesn't like people, your mentor really picked a place crawling with missing-nin.” Minato said from his position beside Obito.

Obito couldn’t refute that point; the area between Taki and Grass was not claimed by any nation in particular, making it a no-man’s land in a way. A place for missing-nin of all kind to take residence. And because of that it is not often that nations enter here; too dangerous to send anyone but their best, and even then there are too many risks for a simple tracking or capture mission. It was one of the reasons that Zetsu chose this place, Obito liked to think. Remote, and not likely to be disturbed by the other nations. And if there were loyal nin then they were hunter-nin and often they only cared for the shinobi of their own nation.

“They won’t bother you if you leave them alone,” Obito replied. Letting the double meaning settle between them; villages would go after them regardless of not being missing-nin. Implying that this was the only place they could settle without being disturbed. Nomadic clans weren’t common in this time - those that have survived settle in smaller villages eventually, or had known settlements within smaller nations - wondering monks were few and far between as well. Most do not practice ninjutsu, and those that do often have a monastery to return to. All shinobi that do not associate with a village are placed in the category of missing-nin and have a price on their head, or are wondering-nin that are on assignment like Jiraiya. This, on top of the fact he was an Uchiha, would mean that settling somewhere like the Mountain Graveyard would be his best bet.

Minato was silent for a moment, “Do you like it?”

Obito blinked, not excepting such a question. _‘No,’_ he almost said, _‘I hate the silence. I hate the darkness. I hate the loneliness.’_

“It must be lonely,” Mikoto spoke up before he could settle on a response, “with only you and your mentor.”

Kushina snorted, “You’re just saying that because you’re from a big clan.”

Obito didn’t need to see the woman’s face to know she was raising an eyebrow, and from Kushina’s muttered _‘Shut up,’_ he was right.

“I’m used to it,” he finally said, knowing that not answering would be an answer in and of itself.

“Well, you’re always welcome to come visit us.” Kushina’s smile came through in her voice. The way he wanted to accept her offer made something sick curl around his heart. They were imposters, he reminded himself. They weren’t _his._

 

 

 

They made it to the cave’s entrance within three hours, the scent of rain heavy in the air.

“I’ll go in first,” Obito told them. “He’ll be easier to talk to with less people there.”

Minato eyed him, and Obito just _knew_ that the man was calculating the odds that this was all a trap - the odds of survival as well. He was sure they didn’t look very good, but after a moment Minato nodded, “We’ll wait here, then.”

He didn’t let himself look back as he entered the cave. It was all the same as it had been when he first found himself in Zetsu’s company. They expanded the caves later on, when Akatsuki started and the base in Ame hadn’t finished. But for now it was a simple set of tunnels leading to a larger opening that housed the statue, Madara - if he was still alive - and his younger self. The White Zetsu clones, too, if he remembered correctly, but they had all dispersed, hidden across the nations, by the time they moved to Ame’s base.

He flared his chakra as the opening came into view - there was no need to startle or even act like he was trying to startle the occupants.

It was strange, he had to admit, seeing his younger self laid out on the medical bed, bandages wrapped thickly over the still healing areas. Strange watching himself assess him curiously from across the room. But his gaze was easily stolen by the movement of a shadow coming down from the ceiling. The shade attached itself to what he could only assume was the original White Zetsu before Obito spoke.

“Zetsu,” he started, “your senses aren’t lying. I’m here to tell you that the plan isn’t needed.”

They tilted their head, “Plan?”

“The moon-eye plan,” Obito said. He knew that it would be hard to believe, hard to _explain_ without actually saying the words time travel - he didn’t want to give so much away with his younger self so close. “I found another way.” He took a few steps forward, “Although it didn’t work as planned.”

“No,” Zetsu agreed, but the voice was somehow _off,_ it sent a chill down his spine, instincts screaming at him to do _something,_ “it didn’t.”

“But my presence means it’s possible,” he pushed, lowering his voice so it wouldn’t carry, “I just need a biju and I can get back to fix everything. We don’t need to capture all of them to make peace, just _one_. And then use our knowledge to fix everything.”

“You brought Konoha-nin with you.” The sudden change in subject made Obito blink.

A weight settled in his stomach, “To bring him back.”

Several white clones gathered around Zetsu’s form, “You’ve been a very, very bad boy.”

“What are you-?” He was cut off as he was forced to dodge an attack of mokuton. In the same moment a burst of chakra came from the entrance to the room, giving only a moment’s warning before Minato barreled inside, followed closely by Mikoto and Kushina. A hoard of clones swarmed after.

“I don’t understand!” He shouted across the cave, having been pushed back further from Zetsu as the clones continued to advance. When a root came too close to cutting him he pulled his naginata from his dimension, blocking the next few attacks and cutting the head off a clone.

“What’s there to understand?” Obito spun, ducking at the same time to move under the swipe of a branch. He brought the blade of his weapon up, but a clone took the place of Zetsu in being bisected. “You're in the way.”

“In the way,” Obito repeated, a quiet murmur lost amongst the sounds of battle in the room.

Zetsu moved away from him once more, clones taking his place. It wasn’t long until their numbers were cut down under the force of himself and the three others fighting to his left and at his back. A minute at most. But that was all the time Zetsu needed.

“It’s such a disappointment,” Zetsu called out, catching his eye from across the room. He frowned at him, and Obito felt a chill run down his spine, his eye flickered and met the wide gaze of his younger self, “we had so much hope for you.” Zetsu moved faster than Obito expected, and he was behind his younger self before Obito could even open his mouth to shout a warning. Blood splattered over the stone walls, the white bandages soaking up the blood gushing from his younger self’s chest and broken skull greedily.

 _“Obito!”_ Minato shouted from behind him, throwing the kunai he had been holding. It was too late. Zetsu moved away from the body - for a heartbeat Obito held the hope that his younger self had bonded with Hashirama’s cells enough that he would _heal,_ but he knew what the sight of the bandages meant. Knew that there was no hope.

“Such a shame you _betrayed_ us like this,” Zetsu said, dodging away from Kushina and Mikoto’s attacks. There was a moment of nothing - white noise in the otherwise roar that had filled his ears - and then all at once a blinding pain through his chest. A sharpness that made his mouth taste like iron; sour and metallic as his throat closed up around the pain, an automatic response to not make a sound no matter what.

His knees went weak, collapsing underneath him. The last thing he saw was the brightness of a blue sky that shouldn’t be visible in the darkness of the cave.


	4. Chapter 4

The clones - because what else could they be? - came out of the ground, peeling off of trees, and swarming them from all sides. It took Minato all of a second to realize that they were being herded into the cave - and any other time he would have pushed back to regroup. But his _student_ was in there. He wouldn’t abandon him. Couldn’t. Not a second time. So he let them be crowded into the cave, went along with the trap.

Only it wasn’t a trap.

When they broke into what must be the main room of the cave system it was to find Obito fighting against the same white clones. It could be a trap. Could be to gain their trust. But Obito was yelling at a half-black figure across the cave, “I don’t understand!”

Minato cut down a clone, scattering a few of his kunai, letting them act as a distraction in the same motion. “Kushina, Mikoto,” he said, “get to Obito.”

“Which one?” The red-head sliced through a clone, the sword already swinging around to block another attack.

“My student.” He let his chakra pull himself over to the seal closest to the older Obito, not wanting to leave him without backup. Whatever was going on here, Minato doubted Obito had anything to do with it. Not with the look of betrayal that flashed across his face every time the black and white figure came into view.

“It’s such a disappointment,” the humanoid creature called out from across the cave, too close to his student for Minato’s liking, “we had so much hope for you.” The creature was Zetsu, then, which left Minato with more questions than answers, and when they made it out of here he intended to get every single answer from Obito. Zetsu moved faster than Minato anticipated, faster than he could _react._ Kushina and Mikoto both still too far to prevent the creature from shoving a hand into his student’s back. With a burst of what Minato could only call mokuton his student’s body slumped.

_“Obito!”_ He shouted, throat turned raw by the sound, throwing a kunai at the creature. He took step toward his student, cutting through another pair of clones mercilessly.

“Such a shame you _betrayed_ us like this,” Zetsu said, ducking under Kushina’s sword and sliding past Mikoto’s strikes. Minato drew up chakra, ready to reach out for a seal at _just_ the right time, but the sound of a body hitting the ground, a noise that he would have ignored, made him pause because of a heat that ran through his chest, like electricity. A matching spark to the spike of chakra.

Minato spun, eyes catching on Obito’s body on the cave floor, a pained expression across his face. “Keep everyone occupied!” He called out to the other two, taking out several clones on his way to Obito’s side.

He made a clone to cover them as he kneeled beside the man, eyes scanning for any wounds, but there was _nothing._ With a curse he shoved his chakra into Obito’s chest, eyes widening as he found the seal was active.

It was killing him.

A curse seal. That was what Kushina called it. Irremovable unless you killed the person who had it. And Minato had done research after his talk with Kushina. Spent hours in the more classified sections of the library - the areas that were reserved for the scrolls they bought, and salvaged from Uzushio. Kushina had been right. There was no way to remove it that had been found. Only a large surge of chakra and complete destruction of the seal would stop it. With the placement of Obito’s seal that guaranteed death.

But Obito was already dying. Minato gripped one of his kunai, letting chakra run through the metal. You couldn’t kill someone twice.

He shoved the weapon into Obito’s chest, let the chakra burst wildly from his coils and focused on the intent of destroying the seal. It happened between one moment and the next, during a breath in that smelled sickening like burnt flesh and blood; he pulled the kunai out and stared at the hole where the man’s heart used to be.

A moment more. Another breath in that Obito didn’t share, and he didn’t move.

There was an itch along his collar bone, right where his mark was. He knew what it meant. But he also knew now was not the time to let himself dwell on a building ache in his body, like a missing limb. (It hurt, more than anything he had felt before; a tightening in his chest, a fire over his mark. A hurt so intense that he could not breathe for a few seconds.)

“Minato!” Kushina shouted at him, snapping him from thinking further on the rising pain; he was a shinobi, he needed to compartmentalize and finish this fight. Needed to protect his remaining teammates. His gaze caught on the Kushina’s where she and Mikoto were still fighting off Zetsu.

With a bit of chakra and a flash of light he landed beside the red-head. Letting the loss he felt condense into a chilling anger that hardened his gaze and resolve to kill Zetsu.

“He can regenerate, and use mokuton,” Mikoto told him, her sharingans spinning.

“Chakra chains?”

“He phases too fast,” Kushina growled with frustration clear in her voice.

“Plan?” Mikoto released a fire-ball at a set of clones trying to come up on them from behind.

“Kushina, could we seal him?”

“I’d need time,” Kushina said after a moment.

Minato pulled out several kunai, “I think I can give you a few seconds.”

Kushina snorted, “Try a minute.”

“No promises,” he said, throwing the weapons to let them scatter across the cave. It took two jumps, one for distraction and then another to put him behind the creature. A pull of chakra and a rasengan comes to life in his palm. Zetsu dodges, not that Minato expected anything less.

A pull on a seal and he was behind Zetsu again, he struck out with a wind jutsu before flashing away. Except, this time the creature seemed prepared, and Minato was forced to dodge an attack of mokuton ducking away before bringing himself around to another kunai.

“The yellow flash,” Zetsu said, his voice doubled over on itself as if two beings were talking at once. “A pity you have to die. We still had use for you.”

With narrowed eyes he let another rasengan form, with his free hand he threw a blade, following behind it as if to make a head-on attack. Zetsu dodged to the left, and Minato took his chance calling up chakra he flashed to the kunai’s position. Only Zetsu disappeared into the floor as his rasengan was about to hit, and the chakra died from his hand. He had barely landed when the creature appeared again, mokuton already reaching out in an attack from underneath him. Roots and spikes of wood that would have gutted him. That _should_ have gutted him.

Except a hand was on his shoulder that wasn’t there before, and the wood goes _through_ him as if he wasn’t really there. A glance over his shoulder and he met the one-eyed stare of a man who should be dead. The sight sent an electricity through him. Relief so intense and thick he almost choked on it. The pain slowly lessoning with each moment passed.

“Obito.”

 

 

 

Obito sent Minato to his personal dimension. Let the man disappear from the cave with the satisfaction of knowing he would be _safe._ Because Obito couldn’t lose him again. Because if anyone could take out the yellow-flash than Zetsu would be it.

He also didn’t let himself dwell on the look of relief that had crossed Minato’s face. He would give himself time to think on it later, when he knew they are all safe, and Zetsu was several dimensions away. Obito wasn’t stupid. He knew that should he not get rid of him now then Zetsu would wait for the next generation. Would wait until Obito and all those who knew of his capabilities had died off and start anew.

It was now or never. And _never_ was fast approaching as Zetsu started to merge with the floor, a smirk of triumph on his face. Within seconds he would be out of reach.

But seconds was all the time Obito needed. With a growl he threw himself forward, letting the anger and betrayal rise up with all the fiery of an inferno.

It burned. Like lighting a fire behind his eye. But Zetsu disappeared, a look of rage on the creature’s face as Obito sent him several dimensions away. Past his own. Past one that looked like a desert, and another with ice. His chakra gave out then, dumping Zetsu into an ocean of acid.

He sucked in a breath as his chakra receded; his sharingan disappearing let the world fall out of hyper focus. Before he could even blink, Mikoto was at his side, a grip on his arm that was a larger threat than a blade.

“What did you do to him, and where’s Minato?” Her eyes were spinning slowly, watching for even the smallest sign of deception.

“Zetsu’s gone, and Minato’s safe,” he said, refraining from spitting the words as offense flooded him. As if he could ever hurt Minato again.

“Where?”

Obito glanced to where Kushina was finishing off the last clone, his gaze taking in the rest of the cave; feeling a sense of satisfaction at the destruction they wrought. Feeling even more at Madara’s absence. It seemed the Uchiha had already met his own end.

“I’ll show you,” he finally said. Showing them his dimension wouldn’t mean anything. They’ll have no way of reaching it without his specific eye, and he had no intentions of giving it up. It would cost him only an explanation - one he had no intentions of telling the truth during. And even if they suspected his lies it would matter little, as he had no plans of sticking with them for long enough that it would have time to backfire.

They waited another few moments for Kushina to join them, before he pulled them through to his personal dimension. The sight of the familiar grey pillars a relief. Enough so that pushing the sharp pains of Zetsu’s betrayal and his failure to turn back to proper clock were slightly easier. Made it easier to shove them down to burn in the same place his anger over Rin’s death did. After all, he needed to focus on getting the others back to Konoha and starting his next steps.

His next steps that he still hadn’t figured out.

Just as they fully materialized he was forced to duck a kunai, Kushina and Mikoto twisting to avoid two others as well. The attack drew him fully from his thoughts. And as he straightened back up, he found himself meeting blue eyes, staring at him with an intensity that left him momentarily stunned. Intensity, and _relief,_ like a great weight had been taken from Minato’s shoulders only to be replaced with another.

“You’re alive,” Minato smiles, wide and disarming as he moves out of his defensive position. A hand going up to rub at his collar bone drew Obito’s gaze for a moment. “I thought destroying the seal killed you.”

Obito wasn’t dumb enough to misinterpret the saying underneath Minato’s words; _‘I thought I killed you.’_

“I don’t die that easy.” Obito tried to lighten the mood. Tried to escape the strange tension - as if something were about to bubble over and drown him - that built between him and the blonde.

“Clearly,” Mikoto said, eying him up and down.

“You had a curse seal.” Kushina stepped up to be in his line of sight, eyes narrowed, “You should be _dead._ Care to explain how you’re not?”

“I healed.” He took a step away from them, keeping them all where he could see them. More than ready to leave at a moment’s notice should they try to attack.

“Well, duh,” Kushina huffed, crossing her arms, “but _how?”_

Obito scowled, letting the expression settle into his features, “None of your business.”

“Obito’s _dead,_ and _your_ teacher is the cause,” Kushina snapped back, “that makes it our business!”

“I didn’t know he would do that!”

“That doesn’t bring him back to life,” Kushina said, her anger blazing in her eyes.

Obito’s scowl deepened, pulling at his scars no doubt, “Zetsu’s dead. A life for a life.”

“You made him disappear the same way you did Minato,” Mikoto said, “for all we know he’s hiding somewhere, waiting to attack.”

“He’s not.” Minato spoke out before Obito could answer. “He would have attacked already. And he would have no reason to try and kill Obito.”

“A ruse,” Kushina tried, but it was weak, and they all knew it. It would be too much effort to place a curse seal on Obito’s heart just to destroy it and almost kill him, all to make them let their guard down. Not when a trap or ambush such as that used before would have worked practically the same. In this case the simpler answer was the truth; Zetsu betrayed him.

It sent another burst of fire through his veins.

“If you’re satisfied, then I’ll send you back.” He hardened his voice, making sure they knew what he was saying was the farthest from a suggestion as it could possibly be. He needed to figure out where he wanted to go from here, and to do that he needed them _gone._

“Where will you go?” Minato asked, taking another few steps toward him.

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His mind whirling to try and think of something, _anything_. Hunting down another biju could bring him back to his own dimension, but there was the chance - a rather large one if he was being honest with himself - that he wouldn’t end up back home. Or, if he did, that Zetsu would be the same as in this dimension. After all, coming here ran on his desires. His desire to go back to this era. His desire to save Minato and Rin. His desire to have it be his dimension - which meant that it was likely (all too likely) that his Zetsu was the same. And that, more than anything, sent a fire through his chest.

No. There was no chance to go back. He knew that. Knew, when creating this jutsu, when executing it, when burning through the five-tail’s chakra, that there would be no return. No third chance. So he was stuck. Stuck in a world that wasn’t his own. Stuck with a soulmate that wasn’t his. Stuck with Zetsu’s betrayal, and his younger self’s death. Stuck with the lies that he had spun to get here.

And the list of places he could go from here were too small for his liking.

_‘I don’t know.’_ He almost said. Three words. Three, simple, words that felt like iron on his tongue, stopping themselves before they could claim any of his voice.

“Ame,” he finally settled on after a few moments of silence. Letting the idea roll off his tongue like he was tasting it for the first time. If he remembered correctly than the Akatsuki had already gained ground, and Hanzo would be making moves of his own.

It would give him an opportunity to seek refuge with a powerful group - small nation or not - and start working towards one of the goals he had for this world anyway.

Peace.

A lasting peace between nations, small and large. A peace that would lead to less death. To less child soldiers. To a world where Rin and Minato would live.

With this in mind he didn’t let his gaze waver from Minato’s, didn’t let himself think further on the carefully neutral mask that the blonde wore. He came back for him. Did all of this for him. And if he wanted Minato to be truly safe then stopping Hanzo and bringing Yahiko into power was the next step to be taken.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So… my lovely, lovely readers… I don’t really have an excuse? Like, it’s been months, and I really really hate that I didn’t update this fic for so long, and I have no excuse for it. Especially considering I wrote and posted so many other fics in the meantime, and just… sorry. I really do love this story, and have every intention of continuing it, but it’ll just be rather slow is all.   
> I don’t actually know how long it will be either? Like I originally planned for it to be fairly long, but now I’m not sure. Also… I lowkey hate writing Minato???? It’s hard… and honestly I’m probably going to write from his POV sparingly in future chapters.   
> Massive shout out to my amazing beta withasideofangst! They are way too good to me, especially with my shitty schedule!  
> Anyway, here’s the newest chapter, hope you all like it!

“Wait,” Minato called out, taking a stilted half-step towards him. Obito said nothing as he waited for Minato to continue, the forced calmness that the man wore like a cloak making something stiffen in his chest. “Just,” Minato started again after a moment, “take this.” The hilt of one of Minato’s three-pronged kunai was presented to him, the seal on it precisely painted. “If you’re ever in trouble just throw it.”

Obito narrowed his eye. Minato, by no means, was a bad shinobi. And that meant that trusting someone you barely knew was out of the question. So why, then, would he hand over his kunai? To track him, who was a potential threat?

He couldn’t refuse it, however. To do so would show distrust on his own part – distrust they both knew was there but sat unspoken. It would break whatever fragile peace remained between them to so blatantly show it.

He reached out and took the kunai, slow but not hesitant in his movements. The feeling of the hilt in his hand sent a thrill to his chest, scorching over his mark as if this represented some form of hope. A hope that Obito wasn’t stupid enough to even begin accepting. Not after so long of having that small torch he carried snuffed out.

He did not say thank you.

He left, instead. Sent them to Konoha and left, refusing to look back for fear that another moment of looking at Minato would make him stay. It was for him, Obito had to remind himself. All of it. And that would have to be enough to give him the strength to continue. Still, the feeling of Minato disappearing beneath his hand left the hollow portions in his heart aching.

He closed his eye to the sensation. Tried to block it out. Pushed it down with the rest of his pain.

Pain at Rin’s death. At Minato’s. At losing and losing and then finally, _finally,_ being able to make a change and ending up somewhere not his home. Not his past.

Pain at knowing that even if this dimension was new, was something _else,_ found due to his desire and wishes, it still did not let him have Minato. Pain at knowing that in more than one world he couldn’t have that name written on his skin. Because Minato would have stopped him from leaving – would have said _something_ – if Obito really was his soulmate. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t. He _left._ He let Obito send him away with nothing more than a kunai.

Pain at it all, and at Zetsu’s betrayal. At not knowing what to do, and knowing all too well what had to be done. At knowing what he wanted but not knowing how to gain it, and knowing that even if he _did_ it very well might disappear.

Closed his eyes to it all and tried to push it away. Lock it away. And even so, he felt it building, bursting, and leaking. Knew that at the next, slightest, misstep he would explode – he was a live wire, barely retrained. Even as he knew all of it, he let the comforting rush of kamui bring him away.

Ame was much the same as he remembered it being the first time around, coming off the third war. The tension between the Akatsuki and Hanzo had risen to the point of breaking. It was only a matter of time before Hanzo made his move to kill Yahiko, and - should Zetsu have been alive still - the rest of Akatsuki would have followed their leader onto the path of death. The thought of his partner – ‘ _friend’_ left a taste in his mouth that cut like broken glass - sent another wave of anger through him.

To think that everything he knew was a lie. And to think that he had been so deceived as to not see any of it sooner. The manipulation became so obvious in hindsight. Like puzzle pieces falling into place, everything made sense; the boulder, Rin’s death, the kyuubi attack. All of it. Really, drawing conclusions on the perfect timing, on _everything_ was so much easier to see now that the fog of trust was cleared away by betrayal. Even if this _was_ a different dimension, the facts, the coincidences, the events; all of it lined up too perfectly to be anything other than a plan of Zetsu’s own making.

He took a breath, tried once again to push the betrayal and pain down and let the sound of footsteps behind him draw him the rest of the way from his thoughts, forcing him to duck into an alley to escape notice. The streets of Ame were quiet, suspiciously so, and filled only with the occasional patrol – smaller than normal, especially just coming off of war. Something was happening, and Obito had a sneaking feeling that if he didn’t find out soon then all his plans would go to waste.

With silent steps and a genjutsu to cover him just in case, he headed out of the alley and followed the patrol on the chance that they would lead him to something important. Or, even just _talk_ about something important, because Obito would be damned if he let everything slip through his fingers. This may not be his original dimension, but it was his home now – he had taken a one-way trip and it landed him here and there was no way in hell that he would let it follow the same path as his own world.

It didn’t take long.

Shinobi were notorious gossipers in any village, especially when they thought that they were safe. And this patrol was within the village walls, not even along the perimeter; they had no reason to think that someone was listening in, at least no one that would threaten their village.

“I wonder when they’ll be back.” The first shinobi to speak up had a distinctly scratchy voice – as if their vocal cords had been damaged at some point.

A second shinobi snorted, “Shouldn’t be that long, I mean, how hard can it be to kill some traitors?” Obito narrowed his eyes at this; the only traitors he could think of were the Akatsuki, and their base was far enough away from the village that even he wouldn’t have been able to sense a fight from here.

“It just sucks that we didn’t get picked for it,” Scratchy-voice sighed.

“You probably would have died anyway,” the third in the group spoke up.

“Like you would have done any better?” Scratchy-voice sneered. “You can’t even pull water from the rain yet!”

“And you can?”

Scratchy-voice said something after that but Obito was already slipping away, not bothering to pay attention to their fight as he pulled himself through kamui towards the Akatsuki base’s location. Or, at least, where he _hoped_ it was. Even if this dimension seemed similar to his own, that didn’t mean everything was the same, and it would be just his luck that this was different. If Ame’s forces really were moving against the rebel group, then now would be the perfect time to build a rapport with Akatsuki’s leaders. Helping them take down Hanzo would give him an edge that would help him integrate into the group and start making changes.

Changes to Akatsuki.

Changes to Ame.

And, eventually, changes to the rest of the shinobi world.

No more child soldiers. No more war. No more loss and pain and death. No more. And it wouldn’t be an illusion. Wouldn’t be a dream that would slip between his fingers as he opened his eyes. Would be tangible, and real, and there. Something he could grasp.

He would bring peace.

Would give it to Ame, and to Rin.

Would give it to Kakashi, and to Naruto, and the world. To his world. To Minato. Even if Minato would never be _his._

Because guilt was a funny thing. Guilt and love and regret. They all came together in his chest like a disease without a cure, an infection spreading and filling his lungs until there was no room left. Spreading and spreading until all that he was, was nothing, and all that was nothing was guilt and love and regret and perhaps it was all that was left of him. Guilt replacing his skin and blood and tongue. Love replacing his bones and muscle and eyes. Regret. Regret replacing everything else. His heart, his lips, his hands.

They were funny things. Guilt and love and regret. Funny in the ease with which they turned to anger. Funny in the way they turned to spite and rage and pain. Fueled it. Built it with intricate stitches and whispers that cut just right. That promised the world would burn and with its death would be happiness. That promised the world would burn and with its death would grow a new world. A world without anything that brought the guilt and regret and anger and pain.

They were funny things. How they all revolved so tightly around a few people. Just enough that he could count them on one hand. Rin. Kushina. Kakashi. Naruto. _Minato._

They were funny things. Funny for their promises. For their pipe dreams. For their centers. For their anger and spite and rage.

And funny in the way they led him here. To this moment. To this place.

To Akatsuki’s hideout.

Burning.

Burning, but not by his hands.

Obito sucked in a breath that was more ashes and smoke than air, coughing it back out as quiet as he could. The hideout was in flames, and the small drizzle was doing nothing to put it out. The hideout was in flames and there were shinobi fighting all around it. The glint of headbands bright in the fire. Without a second thought he rushed forward, twisting around pairs of shinobi, sending up roots and vines and spike of wood to try and stop what battles he could. To give aid to the Akatsuki where he could.

They were all in the older uniforms – no red clouds, but he recognized them all the same. Knew them because Nagato and Konan had worn these when he first met them. When he had manipulated them into fighting for an illusion. (Although he wasn’t even sure that was the end goal, now that Zetsu had revealed their own hand, betrayed him. He wasn’t sure of anything regarding the biju and the eternal mangekyou anymore. But what he _was_ sure of was that the Akatsuki wanted peace, wanted _change,_ and he could work with that. Could figure out the rest as he went. Figure out the smaller things as he picked up the pieces of the bigger.)

He ducked under a blade and phased through a kunai, coming back up and sending out a fireball the size of a boulder towards a group of what he could only assume were ROOT agents, because he remembered Danzo having a hand in Ame even if he wasn’t sure it went as far back as this. Remembered, and knew that if Konoha was fighting in this civil war then Minato or Kushina or Mikoto would have tried to stop him or questioned him at his mention of heading here.

Another pull on his mokuton and he sent a wave of roots up from the ground, taking out the few ROOT agents who had managed to dodge his jutsu.

He turned just in time to have a kunai clip his shoulder – a small scrape that meant nothing really, but it made his anger boil hotter and brighter within him. The same anger that always simmered beneath his skin like a second layer, eating away at the pain and love and guilt and regret. He let that anger fuel the weapons he tossed at the shinobi that threw the kunai. Let it and felt better for it.

It was stupid, he knew. The cut would be healed by the time he found another person to kill. But with that one, small, _stupid_ cut it all became too much.

With another burst of kamui he was behind a Akatsuki shinobi that was having trouble with a group of Hanzo’s followers, bringing out his naginata from his dimension and striking out without mercy. The Akatsuki member sent him a wild look; shock and confusion mixing heavily with the thick relief of someone who had stared at death and been saved.

He didn’t spare the woman another glance, simply moved ahead to the next shinobi and then the next and the next. Let his anger fuel his movements. His anger at Zetsu, his anger at himself. Let it come and with it felt his very core burn.

 

 

 

This was the second time that he was standing in front of the Hokage with a heavy heart in just as many days – it felt like his world had been twisted and then flipped, pulling in so many different directions at once that he wasn’t even sure what exactly to feel. He had found his soulmate, an event that for most shinobi never happened. It should be _happy._ He should be celebrating. Instead he was standing in front of the Hokage and telling the man how his student was dead, and they let the other Uchiha go. Standing in front of the Hokage and explaining that Zetsu had betrayed them, not Obito, and that although Minato gave him a kunai he still _left._

Minato found his soulmate. And his soulmate simply _left._

Left even though there was no way he didn’t know. Left because of course he wouldn’t stay – probably thought that he couldn’t, not with everything that went down in the cave. And even if Minato didn’t necessarily trust Obito, the fact that they had such a connection meant he could at least _try._

There was a tight bundle of grief in his chest. Like an infection, he could feel it spreading; he lost his student today. Right in front of him.

Heralded as the fastest shinobi and he was too slow to stop the creature. Too slow to save his student. Too slow to react to Zetsu’s attack. If it hadn’t been for Obito then Minato would surely be dead.

An Obito who was an Uchiha even if he didn’t know it.

An Obito that was his soulmate, and still left.

There was a tight bundle of grief in his chest. One that he knew wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon.

“He’s my soulmate.”

The room fell silent. Or. More silent than it had already been. Absently, Minato realized he’d interrupted someone, although he was not sure _who._

“What was that, Minato?” Sarutobi shifted in his seat, his hands pressing into the wood of his desk.

“I-.” He stopped, licked his lips, trying to gain some form of control, because that was who he was. Controlled. Collected. Calm even in the middle of a battle field. But. Except. Only. _But,_ there was a tight bundle of grief in his chest and only part of it was for the loss of his student a second time. There was a tight bundle of grief in his chest and Obito had referred to the place he lived as a cave, not a home. Did not have any warmth at the mention of his mentor. Did not act happy to return for all that he seemingly wanted to rush back. It made sense, in hindsight. With how Zetsu betrayed them. But Obito was _surprised_ by the betrayal. Surprised, yet entirely willing to accept it for what it was. Entirely too willing to accept the fact his mentor tried to kill him. Entirely too willing to accept the fact that Minato was his soulmate and _leave._ There was a tight bundle of grief in his chest and Minato couldn’t push it away. “Uchiha Obito, the one that left for Ame,” he started again, voice more steady, but still fractured, “he’s my soulmate.”


End file.
